Is your credit union thinking about joining Facebook? Are you already on Facebook, but you’re unsure about whether it’s worth your time? Let’s look at how to increase the ROI of your Facebook page.
Facebook is an incredible vehicle for creating constant engagement with your members. Bonus points: your members are already on it, so you buy-in is pretty easy.
Facebook is a great way to show the world what you’re really about:
- Introduce your team
- Showcase some personality
- Highlight current promotions
- Reinforce branding
- Broaden marketing channels
- Connect with members
You’ve seen the pictures of groups hanging out together, but everyone is looking at their phones? Have you read any articles about how people are glued to social media? Rather than compete with people’s daily digital distractions, credit union Facebook pages give you the chance to be the digital distraction.
Calculating the ROI of a credit union page is difficult. Instead, we’ll look at what you should think about when discussing Facebook ROI—and how you can increase it. With any luck, we’ll discuss how to create a digital value proposition for your board, management team, etc. on board with Facebook as a marketing channel.
Redefining “ROI” for Facebook
Let’s get something out of the way early on. No credit unions should rely solely on Facebook as a primary marketing and lead generation source. Nevertheless, it can play a major role in your brand’s visibility… and its success.
There are seven steps on the marketing journey to success:
- Know means awareness of your brand and its core competencies
- Like is what happens when people appreciate what your brand offers
- Trust is built by remaining honest and providing transparency
- Try means giving something of value to prospects, like a mortgage calculator or ebook
- Buy is when prospects become members, or when members take out loans
- Repeat means cross-selling, up-selling, or otherwise retaining business
- Refer is when existing members tell others and turn them into new prospects (who will start in the “know” phase)
Facebook and social media offer many opportunities to play with these seven steps. It’s important to remember these steps in a buyer’s journey when thinking about the ROI for credit union Facebook pages.
Credit unions help prospects and members know by sharing content on Facebook that educates and informs members about important financial matters. Then, by providing such valuable information, members and prospects come to like your credit union. Facebook even has a like” button for measurable validation!
Then, trust comes into play when people see that your content is accurate—and when there are personable people at the helm. (That’s when the social part of social media comes into play.)
Both try and buy are hard to pull off on social media. Consequently, it’s hard to measure the actual ROI of Facebook. The big numbers from major lead magnets or closed sales/originations aren’t measured in or directly attributed to Facebook.
Repeat comes in as new promotional opportunities for your existing members. Finally, refer is the big step. When members know, trust, and like you, and when they’ve already bought, they may recommend you to their friends. At this stage, your members become a new marketing channel.
It’s hard to measure the ROI of gaining new inbound leads, but Facebook can play a big part in that.
Let’s say you’ve decided you want to incorporate social media into marketing channels. How do you do that?
1. Create your Facebook page
You can’t measure ROI from Facebook if you aren’t on Facebook. So, create a Facebook page. Or, if you’re feeling unconventional, try adding Facebook group as well.
2. Pre-seed your page
Get your employees and your board to like your page, engage on it, and give you some quick feedback. Does it have the right information? Does it send the right message to your members?
3. Educate
You’re already creating content to inform and educate your members. Just share that content on your Facebook page.
4. Conduct polls
Ask your members survey questions. It doesn’t matter what questions, really. The point is just to build engagement, and the best way to do that is by inviting participation on social media.
(Note: Facebook polls aren’t a replacement for actual member surveys for strategic planning.)
5. Hold contests
Offer a special deal. If they call in and mention that they saw this deal on social media, they get a half point of the next product, or they get a fee refunded, or they get a free doughnut at the branch.
Again, it doesn’t matter what the contest is: it just gives your members added value for watching your Facebook page. It trains them to watch for that stuff.
6. Always ask questions
Whenever you post content, finish it with a question. You want to encourage comments and interaction. Your content could be, “How to get your first mortgage,” and then your question could be, “What was your first mortgage like? What would have made it easier?”
With any luck, your question will start a dialogue, and that dialogue may lead to knowledge, trust, and of course, leads.
7. Always tag key influencers
When you first create the page, if you’re a select employee group (SEG)-based credit union, you’ll want to like and follow the people who are in your SEGs. That could be the CEOs, the marketers, anybody who you know and have a relationship with in each SEG. People like to reciprocate, and if you follow them, they’re going to follow you back.
Once they follow you, they’ll see your content. If your content is good, they’ll share it, and it’ll get noticed by other key influencers in that SEG. If you’re a community-based credit union, like and follow key community players like the mayor, fire chief, head librarian, teachers, etc.
The best part is that by liking and following key people first, you’ll be exposed to their content as well. And the content they share may be very important to your membership. Tag key influencers when you post content to ensure that they see it, interact with it, and share it.
8. Validate measurements
Facebook has great metrics for showing you which content does well, which posts do well, which people are engaged, etc. That information is vital to improving the digital experience for your members—and to bringing in new ones.
More importantly, those analytics will paint a much better picture of your credit union’s Facebook ROI.
Final Thoughts
To recap, every credit union needs a Facebook page. It needs to have your hours, your address address, and other key information. You need to post regular content. You need to engage with and respond to anyone who interacts with you (within reason).
Need a specific week by week checklist for your marketing team?
